


take your sweetheart down to the river

by noblerot



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: BDSM, Character Study, F/F, Graphic Description of Corpses, Implied Sexual Content, Strangulation, all of these things considered but not actually happening, not actually that graphic but better to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22466152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblerot/pseuds/noblerot
Summary: Equating arousal and violence has never been a problem for her before.
Relationships: Wendy Carr/Kay Manz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	take your sweetheart down to the river

**Author's Note:**

> in the aftermath of season 2 episode 6 i was really interested in wendy's feelings on sex and death and violence. love to see everyone coping really poorly with the stress of this job

It doesn’t happen until after sex, the first time. She’s laying there, feeling odd and peaceful as the warm light filters in over Kay’s resting body. Then Wendy blinks, and—

There’s the telltale horizontal ligature on her neck, where someone placed a rope. Little scratch marks all over, signs of a struggle. Her nails raw where she would have clawed back. Petechiae blooming like red freckles around her eyes.

Wendy blinks again and returns to herself, to reality. Kay is stretching languidly beside her, warm and so very alive.

 _Huh._ She thinks to herself, still in a daze. _That’s new._

Nausea is weighing in the pit of her stomach. Arousal is curling up her gut. She thinks about equating arousal and violence. It’s never been a problem for her before.

It’s the job. Of course it’s the job. She should talk to someone, a professional. It’s exactly the same advice she would give to her colleagues. Exactly the same advice that they’re no more likely to take than she is. She knows the profession too well to talk to a professional.

“Something up?” Kay’s voice is warm and rough. She’s a little too perceptive, as usual. She would be good at conducting interviews.

“Do you…” Wendy trails off, searching for the right words. “Do you ever think about being rough? Like S/M, I mean.”

Kay rolls herself up onto her elbows. Not quite on top of Wendy, but leaning over her. Their eyes meet and there’s something in the air, like when they first met at the bar, something crackling between them. A space of possibility. The moment when a true connection might form.

But then Kay waits just too long, and the moment sours. Wendy looks away, can’t hold her stare anymore. When she looks at her, she just sees—

\--that dark and piercing gaze gone distant. Her eyes would have hemorrhaged, filled with blood. A contrast to the color of her skin.

“Never really been interested in hurting people.” She says and Wendy, to her own surprise, feels a perverse flash of bitterness. As if Kay hasn’t been knuckle-deep and staring at Wendy so hard it hurts. As if that is not some kind of violence.

She thinks about what Bateson said. Every interaction is violence. How much of it is she willing to feel? Does it feel good when Kay does something she didn’t expect? Yes, but that’s an easy answer. She doesn’t expect anything that Kay does.

Kay stares at her now, across the pillows. It feels like a vaster distance. “Is that…something you want?” The way she says it is not judgmental, only curious, and that is somehow worse.

What does she want? She’s never been good at knowing what she wants. Can hardly remember ever doing so. She knew what she wanted when she joined the BSU, knew it with a sudden clarity she hadn’t felt in years.

She knew what she wanted when she first saw Kay across the bar. Thought with that same clarity: _I want to fuck her._ A violent thought. Unexpected and visceral. Violent to her, too, as it slices its way across her mind. _I want her to fuck me._

No, she doesn’t want to hurt Kay. Can hardly bear to think of it, even in this detached way.

What does she want? She’s never been good at knowing what she wants. What she really wants, not what she’s supposed to want. Everything about her is artifice. Is archetype. Sometimes it feels like she wrote herself into being, the perfect subject for a study she hasn’t come up with yet.

Wendy understands that’s part of the appeal, sometimes, for the submissive partner. Having someone else decide for you. Not needing to think about what you want.

If the thought changes angles. If she imagines herself laying there, the pressure on her throat. If she imagines fingers digging bruises into her own skin. If she imagines the lack of air, the lack of control. Nobody wants to die, but.

Kay could do it. Her arms are strong. She doesn’t have it in her to kill on purpose—not even to kill, to hurt—but she is impulsive. Instinctive. Maybe they have a fight, maybe things go bad. Wendy thinks about her arms, about how much pressure it would take to occlude her arteries. Thinks about blood and skin under her nails.

But people fight all the time, and Wendy still hasn’t figured out what turns those _maybes_ into a person, dead. Nobody wants to die. What does she want?

It’s not fair of her to think like this. Kay is being sweet, and she…she’s being deviant. Homosexuality is not an illness and she has never believed it one. It’s her. The thing that is wrong with her goes much deeper than that.

_No, but some want to feel what it’s like to almost die._

Wendy still doesn’t know what she wants.

“Just thinking about something a subject said.” Wendy says, and closes her eyes.


End file.
